I got to think about a lot of things while on my long drive last weekend--I just got an acute reminder of one of those things with a commercial for the upcoming movie, 40-Year Old Virgin.
Anyway, I had just gotten back into range of the DC radio stations and picked up one of them I listen to from time-to-time--"The Best Mix Of Everything." It's a lie really, but whatever suits them.
So, onto their morning topic du jour--relationships in your mid-30s (I do like dashes, don't I?).
One of the personalities was talking about a recent breakup she had with a guy. She talked about the very specific standards she had for a guy, though she was sure to point out that they encompass the same basic qualities we all want--smart, funny, attractive, etc. She just said they were different for her, and thus that made her sound more picky.
But going further along in their conversation, the discussion extended toward what kind of guy would be better to date--someone who hadn't been married or someone who had been divorced. Women called in and said they'd rather have the guy with experience, so long as he wasn't a several-times divorcee, because those people figured he would have learned his lesson out of it and would be inclined to give him a second chance, whereas they didn't want to risk being with someone with less experience.
I may have been tired, having just slept 3 hours in my car's backseat, but I believe I heard correctly about this. And then this movie is supposed to make my situation that much more pathetic, right? I mean, substitute 35 for 40 and there's me, no? Guess that's a movie I'm not going to see alone. Duh.
I mean, is this really true? I have next to no experience in long-term relationships, and I just wonder how much my lack of relationship history would scare off someone if I were to get in a relationship. I hope if I get into a relationship that it won't matter to her, just the person in front of her in the here-and-now. But if a woman wants someone more experienced--and once divorced--they'll be steering clear of me.
I wish I could remember more of the specifics of the DJ banter, because I remember raising my voice to my radio as I was driving. It upset me, to be honest.
When I was listening to this, I was indeed mindful of the new movie. At times I've struggled with the fact that I'm well on my way to fitting the movie's title. I've struggled coping with this many a time; some days are worse than others. Today's an OK day, by the way.
I don't pity myself for this; it's just the way my life has evolved to date. I've even had a couple of dreams where I was in relationships; they were actually nice dreams, nothing overly erotic, but just soft gentle cuddling-type moments. I'm not sure if the dreams are trying to tell me something. I don't usually remember too many of my dreams.
My sister, as I may have written earlier, has suggested to me that I may be found more attractive by older women because I didn't have baggage. I suppose there's a difference between not having baggage and not having experience. I probably fit both categories.
A thought I had through all this was that I, myself, have gotten a clearer picture of the type of woman with whom i'd find compatibility. Again, it's not a very specific check-off list of qualities; rather, it's an I know her when I see/experience her thing. I'm almost certain of who she is not.
I still have a dream, should I be meant for marriage, to be a father. But I worry about this on several levels. Most women I come across my age or older have had children already or aren't likely to want one. I know it's safer than it used to be for older women to go through childbirth, but I don't know the details on all this. Plus, I worry that I may not have the endurance I'd like to keep up with a child, and, would I really be as good a father as others have nearly-ordained me to be? Like I said, lots of unanswered questions. More questions in my mind that I haven't even discussed. Questions that don't need to be answered now, especially since I'm not in a relationship.
Now I have a friend I talked to today. He said Disneyworld is acting as his birth control--his wife sees kids screaming and it buys him more time not to have kids. He so clearly doesn't want any. I joked with him about it, because he seems to want to do almost anything not to have kids.
Then I see stories about mothers who leave their kids stranded on the Beltway. I love kids, and cherish that my sister had a child so that I could be an uncle--I hope I've been a good one for him. I think it's a good sign that he still likes hanging out with me.
I worry about how I should deal with my feelings, but I come back to the thought that I can't really do much different other than be myself; perhaps I can add an outgoing-extension, a confidence-extenstion, the same way browsers can have extensions to enhance functionability. That's probably a very bad sentence, the one prior to this one.
Even in silence, having a woman in the same place and time as me (in every way imaginable)would be a great comfort.
It's been shown statistically that 60% of subsequent marriages for people who are divorced will end in another divorce, which is clearly higher than the overall divorce rate of 50%. For subsequent marriages after divorce, "15% of remarriage end in 3 years, 25% in 5 years."* This in and of itself should be enough to make women think twice about the so-called lessons that a divorced man might have learned. The girl that made that comment on the radio was clearly misinformed or simply uneducated in what she was speaking about.
While I am younger than you as a late-20's woman, I can say that red flags go off for me when I think about divorced men. This is not because I have a misconception that all divorced men have baggage or issues of some kind, but it is because I want to be the one that the person I am with loves more than he has ever loved anyone else. If I am with someone who was in a long-term relationship before, including a marriage, then that ideal of mine may not be achieved.
While I may be different than some women, I personally don't think experience is an asset. I think that our society has made virginity something to be ashamed of in order to cover up our own shame at throwing our collective innocence away. Virginity is nothing to be ashmaed of, even in 35 and 40-year olds, and even if you didn't choose to hold onto it for so long, I think it's pretty cool that you still have it. Regligious arguments aside, people in this country are in far too much of rush to get rid of their virginity, and many do so before they are in a committed loving relationship only to find that sex complicates and sometimes ruins things.
Have you seen the Seinfeld episode where they abstain from sex and masturbation and George suddenly becomes a genius? Because he isn't distracting himself with sexual activity and thoughts, he's able to focus on other things. And this does have a religious basis! See 1 Corinthians 7.
In regards to that movie, I am also offended by the previews I've seen and I am married and not a virgin and nowhere near 40. To me, the premise of that movie is deplorable because it perpetuates and perhaps even worsens that stigma that our society places on virginity. The movie implies that there is something wrong with people who do not buy into society's idea that virginity is a plague to rid yourself of rather than, as you put it, a product of circumstance. Again, religious arguments aside, I think it's OK for you to be angry about that girl's comments and that movie, not because either of those situation is an attack on who you are but because those situations are representative of the moral decay in our society and all of us should be angry about that.
*See these sites for the statistics that I cited in the beginning of this comment:
http://www.divorcemag.com/statistics/statsUS.shtml
http://www.psychpage.com/family/mod_couples_thx/cdc.html
Posted by: Kim | Thursday, August 11, 2005 at 08:37 AM